How do the benefits from active demand vary? A comparison of four EU countries

Abstract

Active Demand (AD) programs are gaining interest in Europe, frequently associated to the development of smart meters and smart grids. These programs aim to make demand participate actively in the electricity market in order to help reduce loads in times of high energy cost or network constraints. Quantifying AD benefits for the power system is crucial in order to determine the convenience of these programs, but this quantification is not trivial: AD benefits are highly dependent on the load changes and on the configuration of the electricity system. In order to compare the differences among different electricity systems this paper quantifies AD benefits for four European power systems, using the same methodology. Results show that benefits may double for some countries, but the relevance of each of the benefits studied is similar for all of them.